“You have a head injury and you’re alone on Christmas Eve,” Addy said in a half shout.
“This blows,” Shane said.
“I’m fine. Betty and I are relaxing. It was just a minor bump on the head at the concert. I didn’t even need stitches.”
Vonn rolled his eyes at my little white lie.
“I’m coming to get you. You shouldn’t be alone,” my son said firmly.
The last thing I needed was to be treated like an invalid old lady at my ex-husband’s house on Christmas.
“You’re not going out on these roads. It’s not supposed to stop snowing until morning. Stay at your dad’s, and I’ll see you guys tomorrow night.”
My kids gave each other a look. “Fine. But text us when you go to bed and then call as soon as you wake up,” Addy said. Shane nodded.
“Fine, weirdos. Now go play with your sister before she eats her way through that gift box.”
“Bye, Mom! We love you!”
“Bye, guys. Love you too.” I blew them a kiss and ended the call.
I tossed the phone onto the cushion and went back to my plate. I could feel Vonn’s attention on me.
“How bad of a guy am I when it’s better to let your kids think you’re spending Christmas Eve alone instead of with me?” he wondered.
I nudged him with my foot. “Funny. If I told my kids I was shacked up for the night with Vonn Barlowe, they’d strap on snowshoes just to get back here.”
“Fans?” he asked, capturing my foot with his hand.
Even through the thick layer of sock, I liked the contact. A lot. “They grew up with me as their mother. They didn’t have a choice,” I said, trying to sound normal.
“So we got a deal or what, babe?” Vonn asked, his thumb pressing into the arch of my foot. It felt like heaven, and I almost forgot what he was talking about.
“Are you serious about this?” I asked him.
“You want the story, don’t you?”
“Yeah, but why would you be willing to—”
His thumb dug in a little deeper, and my question turned into a low moan.
Wicked. That’s what his smile looked like in the firelight.
“Before I say yes,” I began, trying to control myself, “I think it’s only fair to remind you that you wouldn’t be getting wild celebrity secrets out of me. I’m a forty-six-year-old divorced mom. The last two decades of my life have been dedicated to raising a family, not shooting tequila on a yacht with supermodels.”
“It’s interesting to me that you don’t see just how interesting you are.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah. Right. You’ll answer all my questions with actual words, not just grunts?”
His thumb shifted higher on my arch, and I wondered if it was possible to orgasm from just a foot rub.
“Anything you want, babe.”
“I want the first answer,” Vonn announced.
Our plates had been cleared. The leftovers stored. He’d forced more Tylenol on me before adding another log to the fire. Betty was snoring on the loveseat. Bing Crosby was softly crooning about white Christmases. We were facing each other on the couch, my phone on the cushion between us recording our conversation.
I had a bad feeling about this. “Fine,” I said.
“Why the hell are you with that asshole? The truth this time.”
The truth. I winced, and Vonn’s smile turned lethal. “Not so easy being on the receiving end, is it sweetheart?”
“The truth is I meant what I said about thinking it would be fun to date a younger man. But I picked the wrong one. We’re not compatible. At all.” I thought about the sex, or lack thereof, and winced. “I’ve been meaning to break up with him for almost two months. But every time I figure out what I’m going to say, he’s so stressed out about work or his parents or life in general. I don’t want to add to his stress when it’s already manifesting in physical ways.”
“He can’t get it up,” Vonn stated.
I blinked. “How in the hell—” I shook my head, cheeks flaming. “Never mind. I don’t want to know how you know.”
“You gotta stop wasting your time, babe. It’s not your job to fix him or his life or his dick. That asshole abandoned you, left you without a ride, scrapped your dinner plans, and still hasn’t texted to see if you made it home okay. You’re dumping his ass.”
“Vonn!”
He shook his head. “Don’t waste your time with someone too dumb or too blind to see how special you are. End it.”
The man was right. He was also blunt and rude and cocky. But he was right.
“Right now?” I asked.
His lips quirked. “You can tell him tomorrow. Or whenever he pulls his head out of his ass. But just so we’re clear, it’s over now.”
There was a warm feeling in my belly that pretended he’ meant something important by that.
“Okay. It’s over,” I agreed.
“Good. Your turn.”
“Uh. Why don’t you drink?” It was the first question that came to mind. It was also one that he’d never publicly addressed.
He gestured at my foot. Still feeling that warmth in my core, I extended my leg and he took my unrubbed foot between those delicious hands. “Because the last time I drank, I had sex with a stranger, she filmed it, and I got her pregnant.”
I let out a noise somewhere between a moan and a yelp because as he’d delivered that news, he’d found a tender spot under my big toe and pressed into it.
“Wait,” I said, my entire body tensing. I hit the Pause button on the recording. “Are you telling me Shayla West recorded your sex tape?” The sex tape that was still mentioned occasionally on late night television. The sex tape that had landed Vonn’s ex a starring role in a reality TV show.
The woman had made a career out of being a rock star’s girlfriend. She and Vonn had gotten together for a few years over two decades ago. They’d never married, but they had a daughter together. Laney was twenty-nine and a model/actress/activist.
“Why’d you stop the recording?” he asked looking amused.
“Because that’s deeply personal,” I said, exasperated.
His blue eyes glinted in the firelight. “Yeah. It is.”
I got his point. My job was to drag deeply personal stories out of him and show them off to the general public. Because he was there to entertain.
“Turn it back on, Brooke.”
“I don’t think this is a good idea.”
He squeezed my foot. “Turn it back on, babe.”
Reluctantly, I did as I was told. I rubbed at my forehead and tried to focus. “That tape came out years after Laney was born. After you and Shayla broke up.”
His fingers worked my foot, but his eyes were on me. “I got wasted. I fucked a girl I didn’t know. I was so far gone I didn’t notice the camera or the fact that she kept angling us toward it. When she came at me through my manager two months later it was with a pregnancy test and that tape. If I didn’t do right by her, she’d leak the tape.”
I wanted to punch Shayla West in her lousy face.
“Not that she needed the blackmail. I would have stood up for my kid no matter what. We made it work. At least for a while. It was a business arrangement. She raised Laney while I was on the road, and I made sure she had all the money she needed. She surprised us both and ended up being a good mom. Lucky for me because I was gone. Either in the studio or out on tour. I was the guy who would come home every few weeks with presents before disappearing again. I was living my dream, and family just got in the way of that. Eventually, Shayla got tired of being ignored. She got pissed. We split. She sold the tape.”